The demand for electricity is expected to continue its historical growth trend far into the future. To meet this growth with traditional approaches would require adding power generation, transmission, and distribution that may cost in the aggregate up to $2,000/kW on the utility side of the meter. The amount of capacity in generation, transmission, and distribution generally must meet peak demand and must provide a reserve margin to protect against outages and other contingencies. The nominal capacity of many power-grid assets is typically used for only a few hundred hours per year. Traditional approaches for maintaining the adequacy of the nation's power generation and delivery system are characterized by sizing system components to meet peak demand, which occurs only a few hours during the year. Thus, overall asset utilization remains low, particularly for assets located near the end-user in the distribution portion of the system.
The increased availability of energy-information technologies can play an important role in addressing the asset utilization issue cost-effectively. It has been estimated that $57 billion savings could be realized by applying smart technologies throughout the nation's electric generation, transmission, and distribution systems over the next 20 years.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved power distribution systems and techniques that allow larger portions of the demand-side infrastructure to function as an integrated system element. For example, there is a need for systems and methods that enable end-use electrical devices and/or consumers to actively participate in grid control.